When I was a financial consultant in New York, examined the finances of nearly 1,000 individuals and small businesses. While there are people who make bad decisions, stupid decisions, made or created debt to finance consumption, the bottom line was that most of them simply do not earn enough to live. If they had taken good decisions and lived modestly, that still would be short every month. When you realize that this is the situation you are in, with both parents working full-timeand still you slip deeper and deeper into debt every month, why not simply purchase credits on plazma TV or go on vacation to Disney?
Living in south-east Asia, I am confronted with poverty on a daily basis. However, there is poverty in the developed Western countries, which must be addressed. Few Americans are suffering from lack of food, but earn a significant percentage less than the minimum needed to live.
Returning to America in 1980, when a friend of mine, call itJawa, was in his early twenties, was extremely poor, living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. Working in a grocery store, has gained a little 'less than what it cost to live. One day he was late for work, but needed to return to the post office for his financial aid paperwork, so it was able to pay for his next semester of tuition fees, eventually dropped out of school, find a decent job, and not suffer the most economically and spiritually mail.
Not find a place convenient parking for his 15 yearsold car that barely ran illegally parked Jawa. The line at the post office was longer than expected, and while Jawa was in line, his car was towed. He reached the post office and discovered that not only his car away, but now had no way of coming to work.
Jawa called his boss and explained the situation. Her boss was furious, but said Jawa quickly as he could get. Without the machine, the only way to get to work was to take a taxi. The taxi would have been$ 20. Jawa earned $ 4.50 per hour. His shift was scheduled for six hours. So, after taxes, Jawa would be in balance. And, of course, at the end of his turn, Jawa would still need to go home, that brought him $ 20 in the hole.
Jawa looked in my wallet and found that it was three dollars more than he thought. He was eight dollars. Not to see how it could work began Jawa go home, which was closer. At that time, Jawa 5 miles back home, it was too latecall a towing service and on his car. The next morning he woke up and called the kidnapping a lot. The costs of publication of his car drove fine up to $ 30, $ 50 for the tow bar, and $ 50 for storage. Jawa $ 130 needed to get his car back.
Of course, he missed both the school and avoid working on that day any way. He had $ 80 to enter the bank, but in the days before ATMs, the money would require the bank to reach the $ 30 cab ride there and back would be.This could Jawa with $ 50 to $ 130 he needed to catch to take the car out. It 'was a Wednesday, Jawas and would be paid for his work on Friday. He earned $ 4.50 per hour, working 30 hours per week, and would get a check for $ 100. The audit, over $ 50 was almost exactly enough to get the car. So it was decided to wait until Friday Jawa to get his check and go get his car.
Jawa last Friday had been fired from his job for lack of work. When he got his control, whichIn the evening he was unable to cash, because banks were closed. He had to remain in suspended animation until Monday. Monday morning, went to the bank cashed Jawa control his, took his money and went to seize the game. In the game, he paid the bill and tow well. But when he went to pay the deposit account, he found that the fee is $ 50 per day. The car had been there since Wednesday, so that the rent was $ 300.
Obviously he could not pay the bill Jawa. He could not return his car so he hadTransport to go looking for a new job. The bill went to collections, and finally found the defendant in a legal dispute brought Jawa. He lost more than three days of lectures at the university, he received signs of failure in many of its courses. Because of his poor academic performance for their financial support has been set, and had to leave school.
Jawa finally found another job minimum wage. It took more than an hour to go in any direction, but considered as a temporaryProblem that had to overcome, just another obstacle on the way to graduating from college.
As the friction time for him to find a new job, rent to pay twice failed Jawa. He asked the landlord can not throw at him. The host was friendly and decided to accept late payments, if Jawa received his first salary from his new job.
If salary Jawa arrived, he found that his salary had been trimmed to kidnap game. Although he worked full time,and over time his control was less than $ 80. And with late fees, interest and penalties, was it would take months to settle the debt, the towing company.
The landlord was unimpressed with the $ 80 Jawa. Jawa lost his apartment.
Getting a new apartment was an impossibility, because it would need to put first and last months rent plus a security deposit, the money did not know.
Then a lot of other things that will happen, and Jawa was a writer, so you can live in aDignity of poverty for the rest of his life.
Jawa was a kind of a smarty relatively decent family, and through a chain of unfortunate circumstances, his life was almost ruined. The more difficult it must be for people from broken families or ghetto, people with children or with a criminal record? A large percentage of the U.S. population lives depend on a very thin wire that could break at any moment and she is driving, the descent into oblivion of the twoRelatives, homelessness and despair.
I recently developed an addiction for the TV show Judge Judy. That to me is puppets on a sense of justice. But I also see the exhibition as an insight into the everyday lives of Americans. All the show is not necessarily bad, but what I often see that people are immoral behavior for relatively small amounts of money, and I believe that it will be better if they do not live so close to poverty.
I thinka moral compass that many people, and behave better, more just, if they had more money. For example, two friends go to lunch. They decide to split the bill evenly, even if one of them has ordered an appetizer, which cost fifty cents more. This is normal behavior and morality. If you have a good friend or a relative, then you think, do not worry, next time you are, who could spend more, and will even out. But in cases where people earn just enough to survive, notapply this type of argument. Liabilities, any contract, the difference will be a battle, leads to litigation costs, more money, and often destroys relationships.
In a recent case that I was in Judge Judy, the actor, X, was suing the defendant, Y, for several hundred dollars. XY had borrowed the car and destroyed it. Then the car was confiscated and destroyed. X is not so felt that he needed to pay for Y, because the car was gone. Of course, Judge Judy said that X Y has had to pay for the car.Next, set X, and the suit said that because of the fines and costs in connection with the wreck and associated with missed payments on his insurance to take X and the rent and late fees and fines. Judge Judy said, basically, you can not sue for a chain of events. One can only direct costs for any direct or cause.
The case reminded me of what happened to my friend Jawa. If you live so close to the handle, any small problem can destroy your life.
Nothappen only for the poor.
In my financial planning clients have had particularly high net worth. A client was in a car accident while vacationing in Florida, and has killed someone. When he rented the car that extreme caution had to buy car insurance. It was discovered after the survivors sued him for $ 1 million that insurance rental car in reality only a surplus that was sold for this part of your responsibility is not covered by auto insurance. For mostThe Americans have this worked well because they have auto insurance. But my client was a true New Yorker who lives in Manhattan. He had no car insurance.
He is the repayment of this debt for the rest of his life. All the plans he had for retirement, had disappeared. The only reason to visit his children, even in a college because it is a kind of contract of marriage with his wife, who had established separate property, and the activities of his wife is not resolved by this lawsuit. But now,his wife is paying the tuition fees in full all three children, of course.
The recent mortgage crisis is full of stories of people who used their house as an ATM and cause of the sudden drop in property values, these loans came due and the people were not able to pay them. In some cases, this has a domino effect of loss of home, job loss, loss of credit and, finally, led the people into a seemingly inescapable poverty.
The credit crisis is causing a lotPeople with their fingers and blame throwing. "There should be a house they could not afford to have bought." Probably, but many of these people would not have a house at all, unless it extends beyond.
Purchasing power of Americans' decreased steadily over the years because the cost of living has risen. In 1971, few Americans had credit cards. After creditcardstatistics.com In 2009 there were 609.8 million credit cards in the United States, which is almost double the number ofPeople.
In 1971 the average price of a home was $ 24,000 and the median income was $ 10,000. In other words, a house costs paid about 2.5 years. The deposit of about 3 months salary '. Couples have a second job or work on weekends for a year to $ 2,400 to save for the down payment. The cost of a new car around $ 2,000 or 20% of salary. The average tuition for their children was $ 600 or 6% of their salary. Minimum wage in 1971 was $ 1.60. So it was not unreasonable to expect that parentshelp their children work part-time and pay for their education. In a single summer, the children could earn enough to pay their full tuition without assistance.
However, in 2009 the average home costs $ 270,000. But the average wage in the United States was only about $ 42,000. So the taste of the house 6.4 years salary. And the amount of $ 27,000 represents more than half the salary of a year. The car costs average $ 14,000 or 33% of salary. College costs in 2009 rose to $ 19,000. With the federal minimumSalary to $ 7.25 children could not earn a quarter of their fees in a single summer.
In this financial climate, the average American was in a house they could not afford. If the average in other words, the majority of the population to do something that is not common sense tax, the situation is not, people will be forced to must be considered suspect.
If everyone asks, something is wrong somewhere.
We have all seen the stories on Jerry Springer or in the newsBuy this extravagance of people on welfare or that they should not have. Jawas had bought a leather jacket just a week before her life exploded outside the vehicle towed. Jawas had a cousin marriage, which was equally poor, $ 300 for a paintball gun that he had dreamed for years paid.
People have mentioned the two purchases and identified as the root of the financial problems of the two boys. But the truth is that the jacket is on sale for $ 125 The paintball gun was$ 300. None of these young people could have radically changed their lives for so much money. If you have purchased for a treatment or not, would still be poor.
Wearing a nice jacket or have a smooth Poverty paintball gun is a bit 'easier to live with it.
You spend $ 6 on a large Frapa Mocha-chino one of the many trendy coffee chains in America, and now, all over the world. The net earnings amounted to 1 hour for minimum wage workers. Therepresents a quarter of an hour the fee by the average American worker. In theory, no one can afford $ 6 cup of coffee. So why do people buy it? Because it is an accessible luxury that makes life worth living. Everyone has $ 6, even if it should spend on coffee. If a liquidation coffee drinker loses its home mortgage fiasco recently, we could not fault the coffee? He made a difference of € 6?
I lived in Tennessee for years and I've seen people who earned minimum wage orBuy a little 'above, a new car that could not afford. And if that decision has been destroyed, people have pointed the finger at them. "Do you understand me." Yes and no. Take my friend Jawa, after the chaos that made him lose his job to his car and bought a brand new car.
Why would anyone with money to buy a brand new car? Because you can get a new car with no money down. Jawa transport needs. Cars cost money market at affordable prices. But anyone could go without paying the amountwith a brand new car.
And it got worse for the vicious circle of debt and in fact continue.
And yet, this situation is not limited to the poor. I have seen in the upper-class families do exactly the same thing. They were just making it financially. Then the children reached the age of driving, and the only way to go to them to borrow a car with a brand new car, no money.
The consumer is certainly a culprit in the financial disaster that most Americans are found in many TVsYou have in your home? How many cars can get your family? Do you really need a pool?
But the downside is that it costs a lot to live, no matter how careful you are. Consequently, even in one of the richest countries in the world, a significant percentage of the population slips more and more debt.
| Price : $186.99 | Post Date : Sep 27, 2011 10:21:19
